The news agency will place one of its members in a virtual news bureau within the Second Life simulation to staff it and report on events inside the community.
Reuters announced that its journalist Adam Pasick will be known by his avatar Adam Reuters in Second Life. His reporting will appear on a dedicated Reuters site and cover the financial aspects and other news related to Second Life.
“As strange as it might seem, it’s not that different from being a reporter in the real world,” Pasick said in the report. “Once you get used to it — it becomes very much like the job I have been doing for years.”
For those wondering if financial news from an online collection of virtual property and people merits attention, it should be noted that the US Government, always eager to sniff out a new stream of tax revenue, has taken an interest:
“Right now we’re at the preliminary stages of looking at the issue and what kind of public policy questions virtual economies raise – taxes, barter exchanges, property and wealth,” said Dan Miller, senior economist for the Joint Economic Committee.
“You could argue that to a certain degree the law has fallen (behind) because you can have a virtual asset and virtual capital gains, but there’s no mechanism by which you’re taxed on this stuff,” he said.
For example, in Second Life up to US$500,000 in user-to-user transactions take place every day, and the economy is growing by 10 to 15 percent a month.
It won’t be surprising to find the Department of Justice taking an interest as well. Any mechanism that allows the exchange of money tends to be viewed by Justice as a way of funneling capital to terrorists, so if avatars in black suits and sunglasses start appearing in Second Life, chances are they won’t be representations of Agents J and K.
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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
